Prior to offering himself for the Presidency, I hated his guts and motive for truncating the civilian administration in December, 1983.
I’m writing about General Muhammad Buhari, the military despot of 1983 that churned out draconian decrees with the speed of lightning and sent “corrupt politicians” to life imprisonment or 200 years, as it suited his special military tribunals.
My disdain for his style then was rooted in his political partisanship, evidenced in the indefensible preferential treatment accorded some of the detained political actors of the era. While some were treated with the kid glove of being kept under house arrest, others, some of who eventually had clean bills of health, were kept in various prisons for minimum of 18 months without trial. But time, the healer of hurt, had since intervened and resolved all that.
When he caught the bug, and vowed that he had become born-again in democratic nuances and opted to run for the presidency over two years ago, I knew straightaway that the man who rode on the crest of undoubted integrity, would get my vote. He got mine and many more, and emerged the only Nigerian politician to date who deliberately sought to become Nigeria’s President and eventually succeeded. None before him, especially Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe and Chief Obafemi Awolowo, was that lucky.
He hit the ground running and made no pretence as to where he headed. He resolved to secure the country, rid it of corruption and enthrone transparency in government business. The Central Bank’s introduction of BVN was a master stroke but he erred, due to indiscretion, by unwittingly announcing in advance that he would deal with those who had stashed away trillions of monies in various international denominations, with stern reprisals.
Smart alecs, who should have been caught by surprise, had all the time to bolt away with their loot and thus left the economy prostrate. It was the reason for the shaky take-off of government as the much-needed funds for the smooth re-engineering of economic activities had taken flight.
When it seemed he had taken the country off the initial troubled waters, his health sagged and instead of working on the ills of the economy, he himself became the patient to be treated; and after ‘go-come’ occasional medical trips abroad abroad, he was finally “arrested” for full intensive medical care in the U.K.
That eventuality worried the genuine lovers of this country but it gladdened the hearts of the vicious and stupendously rich few who had brought the nation to her knees, economically, before Buhari’s advent. All manner of subterfuge was employed, the tactless ones among them, wished him dead. I’m sure if it were possible for such people to penetrate the British medical system, they would have done so, to procure his death by whatever means possible.
The overtly politically ambitious ones among them wished 2019 was a few weeks away and had commenced underground manoeuvres that seeped through to the surface, to succeed Buhari, as if he had told them he was content with just one term. In the process, dissention and crass indiscipline become the order of the day in some state chapters of the ruling party.
Buhari’s ill-health seemed to have been the tonic some parties, which had gone comatose hitherto, needed to let it be known that they were the parties to beat in the 2019 elections.
The corrupt ones in the system, who had taken cover while the king was around, emerged from their hiding places to resume their despicable ways during his long absence; while the authors of hate speeches became more daring in spreading poison all around, such that the acting President had to come out forcefully against the trend.
Tried as the meek man of God in presidential toga did, it was quite clear there was a huge difference between the substantive and the one acting for him. Something akin to the message in a pharmaceutical promo: “if is not panadol, it cannot be panadol”. But when the news suddenly came out that the lion king was ready to return, the wilderness instantly went still and the scavenging “animals” froze, with none able to find the voice to protest against the king’s sudden return.
Their season of anomy suddenly ended when a much rejuvenated President emerged from the gangway of the presidential jet that brought him from London. And I bet that if the man’s health does not relapse, and the new chemistry between him and his deputy, who has earned a fitting tag as the true face of loyalty, goes into action, there can be no better time than now for Buhari to rekindle and restore hope and fire the nation’s imagination in positive, progressive movement.
If he succeeds in doing that, he can well save his party, the APC, from a certain downward slope to which it had hitherto headed, at the national level. For now, agents of reaction and the nation’s tormentors who wished the status quo of retrogression maintained; as well as the overtly ambitious and perfidious ones in his party, whose plantain stem want to act as the teak in the forest, are most likely murmuring in their closets now: why has this man returned so early?
Which reminds me of the info trending in the social media now that cases of high blood pressure had risen by 200 percent because of Buhari’s sudden return to the country. Who cares, if sudden deaths arising from hypertension visit those homes from where economic afflictions hit Nigeria and her citizens?
Facebook against fake news
In the Friday, August 4 edition of The Nation, on Page 40 is a news item titled “Facebook to step up fight against fake news with fact-checking”.
In the story, Facebook was quoted as saying that it would send more potential hoax articles to third party fact checkers and show their findings below the original post.
The world’s largest online social network said it was resolved to fight fake news, in reaction to its criticism as being one of the main distribution points “for so-called fake news which many think influenced the 2016 US presidential election”.
Cheery news this, especially in our part of the world, where people’s minds are heavily blocked with prejudice that principles and sanctity of facts become the first casualties, in their quest to run down and damage the reputation of perceived adversaries, using Facebook as a ready platform for their mischievous or hatchet job.
In the unending struggle between facts and fiction, I bet there will be no ghost of a chance for ice in hell; as truth will always prevail over falsehood.
Thumbs up for Facebook on this move!